Posted by Joel CHUA Yong Sheng, Year 3 undergrad at the School of Business, Singapore Management University

Vietnam Tycoon Nguyen Duc Kien Jailed for 30 Years Over Fraud

HANOI, June 9 – A Vietnamese court jailed a tycoon and former banker for 30 years on Monday for his part in a series of elaborate financial scams worth $1.1 billion that have become one of the country’s most high-profile banking scandals.

Nguyen Duc Kien, 50, founder of Asia Commercial Bank , one of Vietnam’s largest private lenders, was found guilty of a litany of crimes along with seven co-conspirators who used “sophisticated and cunning tricks” to deprive depositors and companies of hundreds of millions of dollars.Former Vietnamese banking tycoon Nguyen Duc Kien, 50, stands listening to the verdict read at the Hanoi People’s Court on June 9, 2014. The Vietnamese court sentenced the disgraced banking tycoon to 30 years in jail over a multi-million dollar scandal that shocked the nation’s already fragile financial markets.

“The defendants’ activities manipulated the domestic financial and money markets, badly affecting the monetary and fiscal policies within the country,” the court said in its verdict.

Vietnam’s communist government says it is in the midst of a shake-up to strengthen its beleaguered banking and financial systems after a series of scandals that went undetected during boom growth of 2003-2007, when the sector saw seemingly unrestrained expansion.

Lax oversight and a spree of easy lending, much to state-run firms, has left Vietnam with high levels of non-performing loans that independent economists say could shackle growth for years without aggressive counter-measures.

Kien, once owner of former Vietnamese soccer league champions Hanoi ACB, was found to have illegally traded gold and stocks totalling 21.5 trillion dong ($1 billion) and of evading 25 billion dong in tax through his six investment companies.

The court said the defendants exploited loopholes and loose regulations by using fake documents and manipulating data on credit growth, profits and equities values.

Guest Speaker Mr. Hemant Amin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Asiamin Capital, a single family office, and Founder and Chairman of the BRKets investor groupMarch 17th, 2015

Hemant, a big thank you for educating and inspiring the next generation of leaders. You are a rare positive role model in the Asian capital markets and you showed the students that it is possible to create value because one has the right values and mindset like Buffett and Munger! :)